Books like Silent Spring

01

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert · Science

The Sixth Extinction is Elizabeth Kolbert's account of the mass extinction event currently underway — the sixth in Earth's history, and the first caused by a single species.

A kindred science read.

02

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Michael Pollan · Health

The Omnivore's Dilemma is Michael Pollan's investigation into four food chains — industrial, industrial organic, local pastoral, and hunted-and-gathered — organized around the question of what we should eat.

Both dig into ecology.

03

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

A kindred science read.

04

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins · Science

The Selfish Gene reframes evolution from the organism's point of view to the gene's.

A kindred science read.

05

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking · Science

A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics — where the universe came from, how it behaves, and where it might be going — to readers with no scientific training.

A kindred science read.

06

Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson · Science

Altered Traits is a careful assessment of what neuroscience actually knows about meditation, written by two researchers who have spent their careers at the intersection of contemplative practice and empirical science.

Both dig into scientific evidence.

07

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

William McDonough & Michael Braungart · Science

Cradle to Cradle is William McDonough and Michael Braungart's argument that the conventional approach to environmentalism — reducing, reusing, recycling, being "less bad" — is insufficient and in some ways misleading.

Both dig into ecology.

08

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

Merlin Sheldrake · Science

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist who has spent his career studying fungi, and Entangled Life is his account of what fungi are, what they do, and why most people who think they know something about the natural world understand almost nothing about this kingdom of life.

Both dig into ecology.

09

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Bill Gates · Science

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is Bill Gates's attempt to explain the scale of the climate problem and outline what it would actually take to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Both dig into policy.

10

Spillover

David Quammen · Science

Spillover is David Quammen's exhaustive investigation into zoonotic disease — illness that jumps from animals to humans — and the ecological and evolutionary logic behind why such spillover events happen.

Both dig into ecology.

11

The Coming Plague

Laurie Garrett · Science

The Coming Plague, published in 1994, is Laurie Garrett's argument that the era of conquest over infectious disease declared in the 1960s was a dangerous illusion, and that the conditions for catastrophic new pandemics were already in place.

Both dig into ecology.

12

The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction

David Quammen · Science

The Song of the Dodo is David Quammen's magnum opus on island biogeography — the science of how species are distributed across isolated habitats and why islands, both literal and metaphorical, are where extinction concentrates.

Both dig into ecology.